VISAKHAPATNAM,
MARCH 30.
Floored by the landscape and facilities available at the National University Hospital (NUH) in Singapore, the King George Hospital (KGH) Superintendent, M. Ganeswara Rao, wants to give a new look to the premier health care institute of North Andhra.

After a visit to the NUH as a delegate to an international conference on colorecetal surgery, Dr. Rao said, at the first sight itself one would have mistaken it to a five star hotel.

He said the NUH had ISO certification with impressive mechanised cleaning system, spacious lounge, 600 doctors and 1,000 nurses with a facility to admit 1,000 patients.

``If not like NUH, we will certainly try to improve the existing facilities by giving a new look to KGH,'' Dr. Rao told The Hindu on Wednesday.

Health insurance

He said he would hold talks soon with insurance companies to have tie-up on health insurance so that most of the patients could sign and go for the care they get at KGH.

Patients and visitors would be greeted at a 24-hour reception lounge by courteous staff. "We will tune our staff deployed on reception duty so that no one will have the feel of visiting a Government hospital,'' he stated.

AC rooms

As part of an ambitious plan, 25 men's special, 15 each gynaec and cardiac special rooms would have air-conditioners with good interiors. In the first phase, 25 men's special rooms would be air-conditioned. A special block was also proposed with 100-bed facility at a cost of Rs. 50 lakhs.

Another first of its kind would be installation of close circuit television (CCTV). Cameras would be installed in all the wards and one could watch the work in all the wards by sitting at the central monitoring room in the chambers of the Superintendent.

The Zilla Parishad donated the amount for the CCTV project, which would be operational in 10 days.

Intranet

Sixty computers were being inter-connected in all the departments so that Intranet could be introduced, he said. Another proposal under consideration was to restrict entry of visitors into the hospital premises by increasing the strength of security personnel.